In China, Communism got a second chance. Simpler and more radical than the Soviet model, Chinese Communism sprang from the countryside rather than from the city. Mao Zedong tried to build a Communist society free of the corruption and revisionism he believed had derailed the Soviet original.

Beginning with the overthrow of landlords, the people rallied behind Mao. Yet soon, the face of communism changed again when the state took control of the land, and the people, through unrealistic economic programs and production quotas. Only extreme poverty led to a change in course.

When Mao felt China was turning down “the capitalist road,” he proclaimed a Cultural Revolution, in which unspeakable violence against intellectuals and other “subversives” swept the country.

The people remember: Mao Zedong, "takeover" of 1949, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, arrest of Gang of Four, Deng's "Second Revolution," Red Guards, Tiananmen Square.